Changing Times
by masamunable
Summary: New leadership takes Global Justice and superheroing in a dark new direction that neither Kim nor Shego were prepared for. How will they cope with the changing nature of their jobs? Knowing Shego, she'll probably quit. KiGo!


Prologue: A Day Like Any Other

* * *

"AND SO, IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY WITH MY REALLY VERY REASONABLE DEMANDS, THE MOON SHALL CRASH INTO THE EARTH, OBLITERATING CANADA FOREVER! BWAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHA . . . "

Shego sighed and filed the claws in her gloves into even finer points. Honestly, the number of flaws with this plan boggled even her mind, and she was usually fairly unfazed by Drakken's special brand of 'genius'. For a start, even though Drakken had silhouetted himself in the demands video, he hadn't bothered to disguise his ponytail; and though his voice was distorted, at several points he had turned and shouted at her for making sarcastic comments. Moreover, when he activated his Hyperspatial-Gravitational-Field-Generator, it would presumably draw the moon to wherever it was stationed, namely the shoddy warehouse that currently served as their lair.

Of course, where the moon landed was largely irrelevant because such an impact would totally destroy the planet; making it rather harder for Drakken to rule it and for Shego to go sunbathing on it. Drakken really had no sense of scale. She had tried to explain that the moon was not small, it was simply _very far away_, but he had told her that HE was the mad scientist, thank you, and that sidekicks should know their place.

In light of these factors, and that Drakken had dared refer to her as his 'sidekick', Shego had already gone out of her way to sabotage the device. If, by some miracle, Kimmy was not already in the (stupid, large) ventilation shafts poised to press the (stupid, obvious) self-destruct switch, then the machine would merely fizzle, cause everyone to lurch sideways and then fold itself into an impossibly small space, destroying its drive and rendering it useless. (Shego didn't know this specifically, but she had yanked out some long red-blue wires, swapped over a couple of plug thingies and replaced one of the batteries with a can of soda. This normally did the trick with Drakken's more ill-thought-out devices.) At the end of the day, the moon would keep its happy distance and Shego could still cash her paycheck- and if she got lucky, Drakken would be imprisoned and she'd get a jailbreak bonus after a couple of days paid vacation. Club Banana had just released a new range of green halter-tops, and she did enjoy paying for stuff once in a while. Otherwise, what was the point of stealing so much money?

" -AHAAHAHAAHAAAAAAAA. Also, if you could make sure that the private army have had the SASS trained out of them, I would be much obliged. NO-ONE GIVES THE MAD SCIENTISTS THEIR DUE ANYMORE, YOU KNOW." He shot Shego an accusing look, which she ignored in favour of flicking through her celebrity gossip magazine. '_Pfft, dysentery? That's dysentery with an L-I-P-O, right? Someone's gotta teach fattie here a thing or two about cover stories _. . .'

Speaking of which, the first few phases of this plan had gone surprisingly well, which meant Shego hadn't gotten her usual workout. Nothing like a good brawl with Kimmie to loosen the zippers. She smirked; lil' Kim might be an irritatingly self-righteous do-gooder, but she did more to keep Shego in shape than a personal trainer ever could.

Above Shego, there was a rattling in the ducts that suggested it was time to start her warm-up stretches. She grinned and ignited her plasma, incinerating the magazine in the process, and got to her feet.

* * *

Kim scowled as Will Du pried open the grille and climbed into the roomy vent in front of her. "I just don't see why you have to butt in! I've got this totally under control."

The cocky GJ agent didn't turn around to address her (though the vents were large enough that he could). "You were unable to prevent Dr Drakken from acquiring the field generator. Now he's threatening Canada and the world with destruction, and at no point have you even hindered him. How is that under control? Or perhaps you are being . . . humorous." Clearly, if this was so Will Du did not approve.

"Look, it's not my fault! He bought that Gravity thing at an auction, fair and square! None of this came up on my radar at all until he started broadcasting his demands. And hey, need I point out that you guys didn't seem to spot him till then, either?" Kim grunted and pulled herself into the shaft behind him. It was big, but it was also very dusty. Drakken had clearly compensated for honestly purchasing his Gravity Mcguffin by taking a huge chunk out of his evil lair budget; this place would have been low-key even for Frugal Lucre.

They came to an opening into the main room, on a walkway near the ceiling. Will jumped out, keeping low to avoid detection; Kim followed his lead, not that she wouldn't have done the same thing if he weren't there. The warehouse was every bit as shabby as it had seemed from the outside. There was more rust than metal, the back half was apparently being sublet for storage, and it seemed that rather than the more traditional magma pit or shark infested pool, the floor opened directly into the sewers. Kim wrinkled her nose.

"Yeah, it's pretty pathetic, isn't it?"

Kim nodded in agreement. "Sure i--"

Her brain kicked into gear a moment after her legs instinctively leaped away from the voice. She barely had time to scramble out of the way of a flurry of hits- Shego had been standing in the shadows behind them, obviously anticipating a vent break in. She flipped to a safe distance, and faced her nemesis with a scowl. "Shego."

The dark haired villainess chuckled. "That's me." She gave Will Du an appraising look, and turned back to Kim with a raised eyebrow. "Woah, upgrade much? I have to say, Buffoon version 2.0 was worth the investment."

Kim fumed. "Ron's outside watching the car." Here she shot Agent Du a hard look; that had been his doing, too. He ignored her, and instead stepped forward to face Shego himself.

"Alias Shego, I have been authorised to bring you to Justice by any means necessary. Lay down your arms and come quietly and there will be no need for excessive force." He put one hand on his shoulder holster, and squinted at her in what she supposed was a threatening manner.

Shego laughed darkly. "Yeah, well the thing about my _arms _is_ . . ."_ here she ignited her plasma, "I'm really rather . . . _attached_."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Ugh, cliche much?" She flipped over Will and aimed a few punches Shego's way, which she nimbly dodged before returning with a high attack of her own.

"Hey, he walked right into that one. I mean, what else was I going to say?" She grunted angrily and sent Kim a roundhouse kick; but the redhead saw it coming and pushed her leg along its trajectory, throwing her off balance and into the railing, which snapped with a rusty 'spang' noise. Shego flailed, her eyes wide, and caught on to Kim, pulling them both back off the catwalk. They landed with a thud in the packing boxes a few feet below.

The noise of the commotion finally alerted Drakken to the fight going on behind him. "What in blazes?! KIM POSSIBLE?!" He hurriedly shut off his live video link; but around the world there was an audible sigh of relief. Oh, well, if Kim Possible was already there . . .

A voice from the catwalk drew Drakken's attention. "Drew Lipsky, I have been authorised--"

"RON STOPPABLE?!"

There was a moment of absolute silence, which was broken by the smacking sound of both Kim and Shego slapping their foreheads in frustration, though Shego was laughing despite herself. Will Du looked rather offended. " . . . No."

Shego redoubled her attack on Kim, who was ranting to herself. "The one time, the ONE time he remembers! Ron is going to be SO mad . . ." Behind them, Drakken set about powering up the machine. He _knew _he should have done this before he made his demands . . .

Kim threw Shego off and made a run for Drakken, but Shego regained her balance and launched for Kim's retreating back--

There was a loud cracking sound. For a moment, Shego didn't understand what it was; she was spinning through the air for some reason, one of her legs taken out from under her. It wasn't till she looked down that she understood.

Kim slowed to a halt, and looked around. Shego was lying on the floor; her face was losing even it's green tint, becoming a deathly pale. She had one hand pressed to her right leg and was staring at it in mute horror. There was a quickly growing pool of blood around her; in a daze, Kim noted that it was red- that seemed wrong, somehow.

Still up on the catwalk, Will Du trained his gun on Shego. "I warned you. Now give yourself up, and there will be no need for furth--"

"SHEGO!" Drakken leaped from the Gravity Drive control panel and sprinted across the warehouse floor with surprising speed. Will Du switched targets but Kim was ready for him; she whipped out her grappling hook and fired it as a weapon for the first time. The metal hook crashed into Agent Du's arms, causing him to drop the gun into the packing crates below. Drakken reached Shego, who used him to pull herself up onto one leg. Using Drakken as a crutch she hobbled behind the Gravitational-Field-Generator, where she slid again to the floor. She tried to focus, and with a snap of her fingers her plasma flared to life. She had to stop the bleeding . . .

Kim charged towards the crates and scaled up them even as Agent Du dropped down from the aisle above. "What are you _doing_?!" Kim heard the wail in her voice, but couldn't help herself- somehow, she knew that everything had just changed irrevocably; and there was no way it was for the better. She was glad Ron wasn't there to see it.

Agent Du looked shamefaced for a moment; but he quickly regained his professional demeanour. "Global Justice has received new directives. We now treat all threats to World Safety with maximum aggression." A note of defensiveness entered his voice. "He was going to destroy the planet!"

Kim's vision narrowed with fury. "He's DRAKKEN! There's no way it would have _worked_! I had. It. Under. CONTROL!" Each word was punctuated by a step towards the cowering Global Justice Agent.

Will couldn't help but take a step backwards. Kim looked about ready to kill him. "I had my orders! Shego is a Priority One threat to--"

He was cut off by a blood-curdling howl of pain from behind the Gravity generator that caused both Kim and Du's faces to pale with horror. A burning smell filled the air. Kim took a numb step towards the machine. "Shego . . ."

Her progress was halted by a crashing sound. Above them, squads of Global Justice troopers crashed in through the window and landed on the high walkway that surrounded the room; all equipped with lethal force. Behind the doomsday machine, Shego growled, her face coated in sweat. She held her arm in front of her, and focused all her pain and fury. Plasma gathered around her hand, growing in brightness and intensity. Drakken blinked. He'd never seen her use it like this before.

Shego's voice was a hiss of pain. "I stashed a jet-ski in the sewer under the grate. When I give the word, we _run_." She screwed her eyes shut and put her arm around his shoulder again. "Help me up."

Kim was about to do something stupidly heroic when it happened. With Drakken's help, Shego stood from the hiding space and waved her arm. A wave of intense green light blinded Kim momentarily and there were several screams and a deafening crash; when she could see again, the pair were gone, and the sewer grate was a hole in the floor. Behind her, the Global Justice members picked themselves out of the ruins of the collapsed walkway and a fairly large portion of roof. Shego's beam had cut clean through the metal support struts like they were paper.

* * *

They took Kim in for debriefing. Will Du did not mention her interference, a fact for which she felt no particular gratitude. That light . . . Shego had never used that technique before, Kim was sure of it. Well, of course she hadn't; for the same reason Kim didn't carry a gun herself- Shego was wanted in eleven countries, but murder was nowhere on any of her lengthy rap sheets. She didn't want to see Kim cut in half any more than Kim wanted to see her staring at her own blood on the dusty warehouse floor--

Kim felt sick. The burly agent taking her statement must have been able to see it, because his face softened. "Do you need a glass of water?"

Kim's eyes narrowed in determination. "What I _need _is to talk to Dr Director. Has she lost her _mind_?!"

The man's face darkened. "Dr Director is no longer the head of Global Justice. We have new leadership now, and a new approach to dealing with threats like Dr Drakken."

"Dr Drakken is hardly that much of a threat! None of his machines ever work!"

The Agent lowered his eyes. ". . . you might be right. When we examined the machine, we found that several of its key components had been replaced with junk food." His brows knit in consternation. "We don't understand it. I mean, he bought this one!"

Kim did understand, without knowing exactly how. "Shego. She's too smart to let him crash the moon into the earth- she has more perspective than Drakken." She leant forward to look into the taller mans eyes. "Do you even understand what you've done? It was the one taboo, and we've broken it! Do you _know _what will happen now?!"

The man (Biggs. His name-tag said Biggs.) leaned in and lowered his voice. "Look, most of us don't like it either; but everyone who complained got reassigned and I need this job, okay? And anyway, it's not like it could have happened to a nicer person."

Seething, Kim leant back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Shego was a pain before; but now you've given her licence to become much, much worse. I really hope you're ready to deal with what you've created."

Biggs wilted under the teenagers stare. She was right, he could see it. Now that they'd raised the stakes, the game had almost certainly changed for good. He shuddered to think what they might have unleashed on an unsuspecting world . . .

* * *

Over the next months, things got rather intense. The supervillains who didn't immediately quit (Senor Senior Sr and his son had retired and taken up safer pastimes, such as bear baiting) changed to meet the new demands of their field. Kim had shown up to foil Professor Dementor's new scheme and had nearly lost her head- her pre-emptive use of Kevlar was the only thing that had gotten her out alive. And worse, new villains were showing up, attracted by the higher levels of violence. Honestly, Kim didn't know what the world was coming to. Global Justice were now totally necessary; they were the only ones equipped to deal with the new threat. That it was their doing in the first place was neither here nor there.

Kim joined them, in the end. She took up a career in negotiation and infiltration, never carrying a weapon herself; this way she could try and avert as much of the damage as possible.

She and the rest of GJ were constantly on the alert for the return of Shego, but time passed and still there was no word of her. Kim had nightmares about the warehouse incident, and wondered what she'd do if she saw the woman again- if she'd have time to apologise.

But she also feared what she thought was coming. If Shego had retreated to the background to plan her revenge she would pose more of a threat than all the villains Kim had faced combined . . .

* * *

If Kim had known the half of it, she would have died of shock.

"SIT DOWN, YOU LITTLE HELLIANS, OR SO HELP ME . . ." There was a loud clatter as the class scrambled to get back into their seats. How did she _do _it? They had lookouts, but somehow she always managed to appear at the front of the classroom like she had materialised out of thin air. It was quite the feat, especially considering that limp of hers. Class 10b, once the most disruptive, disorderly and downright violent class in the history of an already pretty bad school, the untimely retirement of every substitute teacher they had ever encountered, snapped to attention like well trained scouts. There was a genuine glimmer of fear in their evil little eyes, and their teacher lived for it.

She smirked. "That's more like it. Good morning, class."

"Good morning, Miss Vep."

"Sorry I'm late. You'd think that having your brakes cut would get you to work faster, but you'd be wrong." An astute listener might just have detected the smallest hint of pride in her voice; but bad classes are seldom made of astute listeners. Her eyes narrowed, and her students shrank from her gaze like it was caustic. She let the threatening silence last for a painfully long time, then turned to the board. "In light of this mornings events, I have a special class planned for you all."

There was an audible, unanimous gulp and her smile got wider still. There were an awful lot of teeth.

"I'm going to teach you monsters a lesson that you will NEVER forget."

.

* * *

**Author's Note**: I can't be the only one who watched Stop Team Go and wondered what kind of teacher the real shego would make. This is that story and a few others combined, so we'll see how it works out in the long run. Despite the events of this chapter, it's not going to be a dark fic, really. It's a light hearted romp in which terrible things occasionally happen, and not always to bad people. :D?

Lol, anyway, I figure that Miss Vep (Bonus points for those who get the reference) would probably dress a little less Pollyanna-ish than Miss Go- think Miss Go circa 'Rewriting History' with less old-timeyness. Next time: A field Trip. What could go wrong?


End file.
